After all, they're just four white guys!
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The white child’s finger has so much power. A simple point of the finger alone does not mean anything, however coming from white child, preceding the statement that he makes, and it being heard by other white people around him, is something that holds so much power not only socially in the response of others after hearing and seeing it, but a physical response in the body of the black receiver. Fanon knows what it is, and so does everyone around him, even if they don’t consciously know it. For the boy, although he has not learned the level of hate his countrymen have towards the black body, he perpetuates it in a way that is so natural and logical to him that he will soon learn what it means to be hateful towards a black person. This is what Yancy calls the “unreflected imposition of a culture” The white boy has not reflected on his repetitive and familiar actions, but he will soon understand that this is his tradition. This is related to Balwin’s statement about his countrymen destroying life without knowing it. The white person does not know how much power they have, even the children. They do not know that their learned habits that are second nature to them, their culture even, something so essential to their being, is a destroying force to the black body. Their hate, their comfort in associating the black body with anything bad, the simple fact of existing in a black body as something negative is something that eats a black person alive, both physically and mentally. Baldwin says that his brother let what white people thought and said about black people, inform him of what he was. He believed that he was less than in the deepest depths of himself. He internalized it to the point where every movement he made, place he went and thought he had was informed by the fact that he existed in a black body and was therefore less than because the white person’s opinion of him is, of course; right because they are just always right and they are just better and that is a fact of life (in the eyes of Baldwin’s brother). One cannot slip into corners, as Fanon would say, but one might live their life wishing they could, as Baldwin’s brother did. On another note, despite the irony of 4 brown guys repeatedly calling themselves 4 white guys, I do find their use of “Just 4 white guys” interesting, and possibly related Yancy’s choice to focus on the innocence of the white boy’s finger. The little white boy is simply pointing his finger, right? How harmful could this be? How rooted in hate could this be? How piercing could this be to the black victim? Similarly, we’re just 4 white guys—what wrong could we do? Why would you take anything we do seriously? How could you take anything we do as a threat? Or as offensive? We just eat pizza and rock out! The very fact of existing in a white body serves as a shield from being seen as a threat, whereas the very fact of existing in a black body makes you a threat to the harmless white body. Robert Gooding-Williams as written by Yancy says “The white boy’s expression of fear posits a typified image of the n as behaving in threatening ways.” (Yancy, pg2). It is the expression of the slightest sense of fear or uncomfort by a white person—in Fanon’s case it was the mere fact of the innocent white boy pointing out that he was black, in the context of Maher Khalil it was the explicit statement of fear from a white woman demanding to know what was in his white box, that justifies what white people think about racialized people: that they are dangerous. Although they would have thought this about them in the first place, even without any justification, but in any case, it helps. In none of these contexts, however, was there a real threat, except of course the white person posing a threat to the racialized person’s safety, the victim. But of course, racialized people being threatened by a white person is always ignored because after all, they’re just 4 white guys!
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rofl @ the subject